


I'm the Light Blinking at the End of the Road

by Draco_sollicitus



Series: Damerey Tumblr Collection [5]
Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: BB8 and the Force both ship it, F/M, Fate, Or just the Force, Poe Dameron POV, Post-TLJ, Romance, Tumblr Prompt, light cursing, watching horror movies as a cuddling device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 18:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15006482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Aboard the Falcon, moments after escaping Crait, Poe Dameron has the oddest feeling that he's met Rey from Jakku before; as time wears on, he grows more and more aware of how familiar she is.It takes a few months for Poe to realize the reason why he knew who Rey was the second they met.





	I'm the Light Blinking at the End of the Road

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to greyone01, who requested this with the tumblr quote prompt of "It was you the whole time"
> 
> Fic title from the lovely [Panic! at the Disco song, "Always"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoFylcrxdM0)  
> which is a song I've listened to in the past as part of my Damerey playlist (esp. when writing May the Froth), but now I finally get an excuse to use it given the perfect match with the prompt!

“I’m Poe...Poe Dameron,” he said, holding his hand out to the pretty girl his droid couldn’t shut up about.

“I’m Rey,” she said, smiling and standing fluidly. And kriff if her smile didn’t hit him like a jump into Hyperspace. This girl - woman - just saved them all from certain death, had led off an absurd number of TIE-fighters, was Finn’s best friend - and had been BB-8′s sole topic of conversation since the droid bobbled his way back into Poe’s life not three days ago. If that weren’t enough, there was something about her - her smile, the way she held herself, the slight crinkles around her eyes, hells, even her voice - that was unshakably familiar.

“I know,” Poe said, smiling back at her, marveling at the feeling of her hand in his.

He’d never spoken truer words; but it would be a while before he figured out why it felt like such undeniable fact.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Rey from Jakku proved herself to be an extremely competent pilot, but what Poe really enjoyed was how she laughed uproariously whenever something new (and decidedly alarming) popped up in the Falcon’s dashboard. 

“Should that be smoking?” Finn yelped, pointing at a spot above the nav-comp. 

“Prob’ly not!” Rey chirped, standing up to tap it lightly with her hand. “There we go!” Sure enough, it stopped smoking; and Poe lifted a single eyebrow at Finn in concern. Finn’s mouth dropped open.

“Tell me there’s a better way for you to fix that.” Rey didn’t respond, so Finn raised his voice. “Rey, tell me there’s a better way to -”

“How long have you been flying?” Poe asked Rey, admiring the way she instinctively leaned into the controls when she sat back down. Finn huffed, threw his hands in the air, and stormed out of the cockpit.

“Six days!” Rey said, beaming at him. Poe whistled in wonder, and then he grinned at how it made her blush ( _don’t think about how pretty she is, don’t do it, gods, what’s wrong with you, you’re a hundred years older than she is_ ) - he gestured at her to keep speaking. A pleased smile played at her lips as she continued- she looked entirely surprised that someone had asked her to speak.

“I found an abandoned simulator in a ship from the Battle of Jakku,” Rey explained, fiddling with a control. “Ran a bunch of scenarios, in and out, until I had them memorized. It was basically all I had for entertainment; but, with that, and the fact that I ripped apart and put back together basically every kind of ship in the galaxy, flying’s come pretty easy to me so far.” 

“I think most things must come easy to you,” Poe said honestly. “And, for the record, you’re a hell of a pilot.”

She smiled again, and it was a private expression this time. “I’ve always admired piloting. And pilots,” Rey said thoughtfully. “I even had a little doll that I made, one that wore an orange uniform, from some scrap I found. I don’t know how I knew that was a Rebel pilot’s flightsuit, but it just...felt right.” She shrugged, cheerfully. 

Poe didn’t say anything, just hummed thoughtfully and looked out of the starviewer. 

“I’m going to use the ‘fresher,” Rey announced. “Are you good piloting for a few minutes on your own?”

“Sure thing, Sunshine,” Poe said breezily. Rey laughed lightly. 

“I’ve never had a nickname before!” She said, standing and stretching out her lower back. “I like it!” 

Rey stepped out into the aisle and lost her footing for a moment; Poe reached up to brace her elbow at the same time she reached out blindly to grab his shoulder. 

It was like the entire universe lit up at once and then narrowed down to those points of contact - Rey’s hand on his shoulder, his hand on her elbow - and all sound and light and space and time unraveled and then wound tightly around them in this constrained space; his breath caught and his blood boiled, and all the sound came rushing back into his ears as his heart accelerated perhaps permanently, and -

Rey straightened up, laughing again, an impossibly sweet, impossibly familiar sound. “Sorry about that, Commander!” She said, releasing his shoulder. Poe let go of her elbow both on and against instinct. She patted him on the arm jokingly and walked out of the cockpit. Poe stared after her, his mouth dry, heart still pounding in his ears.

_Well. That was weird._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Poe found increasing excuses to stare at Rey from Jakku in the following weeks. While he could claim some of it was admiring her practice with a lightsaber, or helping her improve her blaster skills or piloting techniques (acting as her commanding officer, of course), he was honestly just trying to figure out why she felt so familiar to him. 

(And there was the question of why he responded so viscerally to her. About a month after they’d landed on a new, secret base, she’d nearly given him a heart attack when she hugged him quickly in excitement after she’d successfully put on a flightsuit, battle-ready a full minute and a half before the other recruits. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and Poe had felt that odd galaxy-realigning-stars-falling-into-place feeling again; it shook him to his core and left him speechless for nearly five seconds)

Sometimes, he caught her staring at him, too. To be fair, once was because he’d literally been knocked on his ass by Jess during hand-to-hand sparring in the practice room. Rey had looked vaguely worried, and he’d laughed it off (but he’d stopped laughing when Rey turned around, and Jess held a hand out to help him up, mostly using it as an excuse to whisper,  _did I embarrass you in front of your girlfriend, Commander?_ a taunt that had cost her three extra laps that evening). Other times though, he’d say something trying to rally the others, like “Don’t forget, you’re the spark of hope for this rebellion,” or, “We gotta remember to follow the light; there’s hope for as long as there’s Light,” and Rey would stare at him as if she were a thousand miles away - then she’d blink, shake her head, smile shyly at him and turn away. It was driving him mad, wondering where she went, and why she went there in those moments.

It’d be easier if he thought it was just a crush. He’d had crushes before (his longest lasting one was on General Organa, born of meeting her when he was a kid, and then worshiping the ground she walked on for decades; honestly it still hadn’t quite faded), and he knew how to deal with crushes. But Rey made him feel like he’d been knocked off balance at the same time he felt like he’d finally come home. He went to absurd lengths, sacrificed all dignity, just to hear her laugh; he saved her his ration-bread at every dinner because the thrilled smile she gave him every time he handed it over on the way to the barracks filled him to the brim more than food ever could; and he struggled to keep his hands away from her, worried that he’d feel that odd galaxy-shift again if they touched. 

Rey from Jakku had gotten under his skin; and, it felt like she’d always been there.

He didn’t piece it together for three months. On a random Centaxday, they all huddled together in a rec room to watch a holo-vid. It was a creepy-crawly one, and Poe had the absolute  ~~pleasure~~ torture of sitting next to Rey, who (and it was odd, as she’d faced literal monsters and Death in her two decades of existence) grew paler and paler as the horror drew on: eventually she just buried her face in Poe’s shoulder, her hand covering the side of her face, as the creature chased the plucky hero and heroine across space. 

“Why doesn’t he just leave them alone?” Rey moaned, drawing her foot up onto the seat so that she could use her knee to block out more of the movie. It incidentally drew her even closer to Poe, who clenched the hand not wrapped around Rey’s back into a fist while he breathed in through his nose shallowly.

“No idea, Sunshine,” he whispered back hoarsely. A loud bang echoed on the screen, and Rey whimpered, burying herself against Poe even more. He brought his hand up to help shield her face. “Just don’t watch it, and remember that if you met that guy in real life, you’d kick his ass.”

“Yeah,” Rey laughed shakily, and squeaked again when the music ratcheted up another notch; Poe made a mental note to ask Iolo to screen a romance holo next week. He looked up to frown at his horror-loving friend, but caught Snap and Kare’s gaze instead - the married couple wore matching, shit-eating grins, and he scowled at both of them. Snap fluttered his eyelashes, puckering his lips, and Kare pretended to throw snap-corn around in the air, obviously mimicking the way grains were thrown at a Yavinese wedding ceremony. 

Poe pointedly ignored them for the rest of the film and instead dedicated himself to distracting the Jedi tucked into his side. When the credits rolled, he whispered, “It’s safe to come out now, Rey.” She looked up, bleary-eyed, and frowned.

“Sorry for ruining the movie for you,” she said sheepishly. “I don’t know why that bothered me so much.”

“You didn’t ruin it at all,” he reassured her. Honestly, that was the best hour and a half of his life, and if he didn’t think it was going to traumatize Rey, he’d ask to watch it again, right now, in the exact same way, just to have her close for a while longer. “And, to answer your question; we have enough horror in our lives.” He shrugged. “It makes sense that you wouldn’t want to experience any more terror.” 

Rey smiled at him, and his heart pounded in his chest (the most common response he had to Rey doing anything near or towards him). “Thanks, Poe.” She leaned in lightning quick and kissed his cheek. 

Rey was up and walking towards the door before Poe could respond. 

He lifted his hand up, blinking slowly, and cupped the warm spot on his skin where her lips had just lingered. “What?” Poe muttered to himself.

“Gods, Dameron, walk her back to her bunk,” Kare scolded, chucking more snap-corn at him. “The monster might get you both.”

Poe rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Like hells you don’t. Go and get your girl, Commander.” Snap laughed and wrapped his arm around Kare. Poe waved a hand at his friends but got up all the same.

He was headed for the barracks when he heard a horrible, gut-wrenching scream. A scream he knew, somehow.

It was Rey.

How did he know that? 

_Never mind, Rey needs you, move, godsdamnit, go -_

It was the only thought he had time for as he sprinted down the corridor. 

“Rey!” He shouted, rounding the corner to find a sheepish Iolo rubbing his side and wheezing, and Rey clutching her staff. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I was just playing around,” Iolo said apologetically. “I’m really sorry.” He coughed, still cradling his stomach. 

“He snuck up on me!” Rey said indignantly. “He made us watch that awful movie - and then he snuck up on me and startled me! The nerve!” She moved forward still clutching her saberstaff, and Iolo yelped and turned tail, running down the hallway. 

Rey lowered her staff frowning, and Poe held his hand out, trying to soothe her. 

She took his hand instead. “Thank you for coming to the rescue,” she said, laughing ruefully. “Even if it was just my imagination, and Iolo being an arse. You got here so fast! Like a knight in a holo!” 

Poe frowned, studying the places where their hands linked. “You’re okay?” He asked, heart still pounding up near his throat. 

“Yes, Poe, I’m fine,” Rey said gently, smiling at him when he looked up. “But - I wonder how you knew it was me? You were calling for me before you even turned the corner, and I’d like to think I don’t scream all that often.”

“No,” Poe laughed in acknowledgment. “You aren’t exactly a damsel in distress.” Rey giggled, stepped a little closer to him, and in doing so, her arm brushed up against him - the planet tilted, galaxy narrowed down on itself: the pieces fell together.

“It was  _you_ ,” Poe said, eyes widening. “I have heard you scream - when we were escaping to Crait _,_ I heard someone screaming - it was you!”

“What?” Rey asked, squeezing his hand, seemingly without realizing it. Poe stared into her face, searched it for the light of recognition - it wasn’t forthcoming. “What are you talking about?”

“I was unconscious when we evacuated  _The Raddus,”_ Poe explained. He coughed, unsure of how much of this story Rey knew. “I uh, might have commtited some - light - treason...” Poe looked at Rey’s face again, but there was no judgment, only patience and understanding. “Anyway, it was just darkness, just sort of floating along in nothingness- and then I heard a person, a woman, screaming in pain. I knew I had to help her, and I woke up, desperate to help, but there was no way off the transpo, and then it almost slipped my mind while we were trying to fight off Kylo’s men.”

“Snoke  _was_ torturing me around the time of the evac,” Rey said thoughtfully, not dropping his hand; Poe’s stomach dropped, hearing that she’d been tortured ( _what **hadn’t** she gone through? why didn’t she lean on anyone for help? why hadn’t he known she had suffered in that way?_) “But why do you think you’d be able to hear me like that. That’s almost like the F-” she cut herself off, frowning, staring into the space over Poe’s shoulder.

“The Force tree,” Poe breathed, bringing his other hand up to cup hers in both of his. Rey dragged her eyes away from whatever distant point she’d been staring at, and looked him in the eyes. “No, Sunshine - this is going to sound  _crazy,_ but - have you ever felt like ... we’d met before? Before Crait, I mean?”

 _No, Dameron, you’re insane,_ he expected her to say.  _You weird intergalactic stalker._

Or more likely, she’d respond with compassion:  _Well, we did see each other on D‘Qar, Commander, and then in passing when I was saying goodbye to Finn. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of - have you hit your head recently_?

Instead, her eyes widened. “I thought it was just me,” she said softly. “I thought-”

“I had visions,” Poe said, blinking rapidly. “When I was a boy, when I used to fall asleep in the Force tree on my dad’s property- Luke gave my mother a clipping of the Force tree, and it - I wasn’t Force-sensitive, not like you are, but the tree, well, it liked me? And I saw some stuff before I went off to Flight School, things that didn’t make any sense at the time, but now-”

“I’ve heard your voice,” Rey said excitedly, leaning in. “When I was alone on Jakku, within the last year or so, I heard a man’s voice, talking about hope and fighting and strength - it kept me going in the desert, the idea that there was a higher cause I could be helping-”

“You too?” Poe asked, beaming so hard his face hurt. “Oh, gods, I thought it was just me, I thought I was going crazy-”

“I think we both might be crazy,” Rey pointed out, and they laughed together. “Thank the Force that no one’s listening in on this, or they’d send us to the Med Bay for an exam-”

“It was you,” Poe murmured, swallowing hard. The vision he’d had as a child, when he’d fallen asleep, clutching his mother’s ring: the tree had shown him his future, a future where he was happy and loved, and loved a beautiful woman whose kindness and strength shone through her skin almost like - “Sunshine, it was you the whole time.”

“Maz told me,” Rey said, tears in her eyes, “The belonging I sought wasn’t behind me, but just ahead of me- could she have -?”

“Hells,” Poe said, shakily. “This is - uh , it’s a lot to take in.”  _Are we soulmates?_ He wanted to ask her, but that seemed a little intense, given their age difference, and the limited time they’d known each other, and the novelty of their revelation. So, instead, he settled on asking, “Can I take you on a date?” 

When Rey didn’t say anything right away, he backtracked. “Just uh- to figure everything out? You know? I’d just like to get to know you better, if you’re the person who-” _W_ _ho I've dreamed of my entire life,_ seemed a little intense, too. Gods, this Force stuff was heavy.

“Oh!” Rey’s eyes widened. “A date is - a romantic thing? I thought you were asking me for the date-date, and I was worried because it’s a Centaxday, and that’s fairly obvious-”

“Shit,” Poe laughed, and finally released her hand, if only to offer her his arm. “No, it’s definitely a romantic thing. If you want it to be, that is.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more,” Rey said sweetly, with not even an attempt to mask her happiness, and Poe felt the entire galaxy spin on this one, perfect, shining moment where the pieces of his life had finally fallen together.

They’d found each other. They could figure the rest out later.

**Author's Note:**

> I know in Rey's Survival Guide, the pilot doll she made is modeled after decidedly not Poe Dameron, but hey, that's what fanfic is for, right?!?!?!?
> 
>  
> 
> p.s. I should update "On a Wing and a Prayer" soon, I got distracted by tumblr prompts and work!


End file.
